About Me

I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator and am now a journalist. I am the author of three New York Times bestselling books -- "How Would a Patriot Act" (a critique of Bush executive power theories), "Tragic Legacy" (documenting the Bush legacy), and With Liberty and Justice for Some (critiquing America's two-tiered justice system and the collapse of the rule of law for its political and financial elites). My fifth book - No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State - will be released on April 29, 2014 by Holt/Metropolitan.

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Upstanding John Podhoretz warns of the uncivilized Charlie Rangel

(see update below for correction)

There is no point in documenting all of the garden-variety hypocrisy of Bush followers -- where they piously spout behavioral standards that they have spent their whole careers violating -- because there is just too much of it to make that exercise worthwhile. But sometimes it is so severe and prominent that one can't help it.

NY PostEditorial Page Editor John Podhoretz has an Editorial in today's Post (see Update below)designed to demonize Charlie Rangel -- the uncivilized savages will take over if the Democrats win! -- and it contains this sermon:

John Kerry's insult this week of, supposedly, the "president, not the troops" overshadowed another story: Top New York Democrat Charlie Rangel's own vitriolic outburst, calling the vice president a "son of a bitch."

In an interview with The Post, the aspiring chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee lashed out at Dick Cheney, suggesting the veep seek "rehab" for "whatever personality deficit he may have suffered."

Don't Dems have any respect for America's highest political offices? (Maybe they should be called the Gutter-crats).

Just for vulgarity's sake, let me put it this way: She's got to be a bitch. And Hillary is a bitch. Her challenge will be to play up her antifeminine qualities without being completely without charm and appeal.

COLMES: You say in this book, "You and everyone you know," you write, "probably despise Hillary Clinton. There's almost nothing that appeals to you."

I don't mean that his policy ideas are insane, though many of them are. I mean that based on his behavior, conduct, mien and tone over the past two days, there is every reason to believe that Albert Gore Jr., desperately needs help. I think he needs medication, and I think that if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely.

John Podhoretz on President Bill Clinton -- August 14, 2000, The New York Post (via Lexis):

THIS is the speech Bill Clinton will not give tonight - though wouldn't it be fun if he did? . . . "Unlike Newt Gingrich, I am blessed with only one wife - the next senator from the great state of New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton! I know the old adage says the family that plays together stays together, but Hillary and I have proved them wrong. The family that lies together stays together, and don't you forget it!"

John Podhoretz on then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, New York Post, July 15, 2000 (via Lexis):

Jews make up 14 percent of the electorate in New York state. And assuming that the Oppenheimer story is true, I hereby invite them to join this Jew bastard in sending the following message to Mrs. Clinton:

Sell your Chappaqua house, go back to Arkansas - and rot.

John Podhoretz on the Commander-in-Chief and President of the U.S. Bill Clinton -- Fox News, February 24, 1999 -- explaining why it is easy to believe that Bill Clinton is a rapist (via Lexis):

Number two -- number two, I think the reason that people are willing to go -- to take a step toward this -- this Juanita Broaddrick matter, in terms -- not just NBC, but these two other journalistic organizations, is because -- as opposed to, say, you know, fallacious and ridiculous arguments that Clinton shot -- had two teenage boys shot near railroad tracks, is that the idea that he behaves like a sexual predator and conducts himself in a manner unbe -- you know, conducts himself in a sexual manner...

CRAWFORD: But you know, that...

PODHORETZ: ... that is gross and...

CRAWFORD: That's where this case...

PODHORETZ: ... is something that we -- is something that has credibility.

John Podhoretz, The New York Post, column on the President of the United States entitled "The Master Liar Stumbles," September 22, 1998:

But the president decided to remain a liar, perhaps because being a liar is one of his defining characteristics.

So, to summarize John Podhoretz's world: President Bill Clinton is a liar, a sexual predator, and conducts himself in a "gross" sexual manner that makes rape allegations believable. Sen. Hillary Clinton is a bitch who should play up her antifeminine qualities and go back to Arkansas and rot. Vice President Al Gore is insane, desperately needs help, and needs to have his medication adjusted.

Moreover, it's really outrageous and sickening how "Democrats" like Rangel have "no respect for America's highest political offices" and they should therefore be called Gutter-crats. High political officials deserve respect and not to be spoken of in such a manner. Hopefully this will make people think twice before turning over control of the House to the likes of the uncivilized, gutterish Charlie Rangel.

And all of that is to say nothing of the fact that Rangel's elegant, civilized, upstanding victim here, the Honorable Vice President, makes the filth-peddling Podhoretz look like the Beacon of Good Manners, as I'm sure Pat Leahy would be happy to point out.

UPDATE: While we're on this topic, let us not overlook Podhoretz's Corner playmate and fellow nepotism-beneficiary Jonah Goldberg, who published this very pious letter from a reader condemning Kerry for intending, with his botched joke, to direct "a personal insult to the President of the United States." It makes sense that Jonah would be particularly offended by such a thing because -- say what you will about Jonah -- he does not engage in personal insults against the Commander-in-Chief and never would.

It's true that Jonah called Bill Clinton "a hormonally challenged selfish jerk" and opined based on a Drudge rumor that he is a "deadbeat dad." It's also true that Jonah explained how Hillary is trapped in a loveless marriage, suffers from "battered-spouse syndrome," that "her love for [her husband] is her dysfunction," and that she is "addicted to saving her husband," which is "like being addicted to the smell of the Band-Aids she puts on his knuckles after he beats her." And that's all from just one randomly selected Jonah column. There is a virtual library of sleazy insults and vile innuendo spread by Jonah, his mom and their friends directed in the most personal way possible at the Clintons during several years of their Presidency.

But can you believe that John Kerry would dare to direct "a personal insult to the President of the United States"? As Jonah's friend John says, Democrats should be called Gutter-crats!

UPDATE II - Correction: John Podhoretz e-mailed to point out that he is no longer the Editorial Page Editor of the Post and hasn't been for some time, but instead is now only a Post columnist. I used an oudated bio for him which I found this morning when writing this postand which looked current. My apologies to him for the error.